Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

You stand on a crowded railway platform. A train approaches and you gather your belongings. It slows, almost to a crawl, but never stops. Through the carriage windows you glimpse passengers gazing listlessly. Some are wearing pig masks. Nobody is smiling. Then, abruptly, the train picks up speed again and is gone. You look around. The platform is deserted. You check the timetable in your pocket. It's printed in a language you don't understand. You put down your suitcase and frown.

This is something like the experience of watching Train, an hermetic dream play in three short parts – or carriages – by playwright Elise Hearst, directed by Jessica Murphy.

The dominant mood is one of traumatised nostalgia. Early twentieth century Europe is evoked in music, costumes and manners, but there is a more contemporary horror lurking. Two sisters appear at once both middle-class daytrippers and refugees. In another carriage, two film actors, one a star, the other not, try to comfort an hysteric, though they themselves seem on the brink. The ticket inspectors are all pigs in polyester suits.

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The first problem is not the play's obscurity, but that, despite first-class production design, it feels under rehearsed. Across the eight-member cast only Hearst herself and Lauren Urquhart seem at one with the strange rhythms and mysterious trajectory of the piece.

Yet the obscurity is an issue. At times projecting a surreal glamour, at times frustratingly evasive, Train suggests much, but reveals little, and ultimately the audience feels left behind.